Children's hospital Bereavement Coordinator uses Help Texts to support grieving families
Gina Kornfeind is the Bereavement Coordinator at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. She's spent 14 years supporting parents whose children receive care at her hospital, and over 30 years working in bereavement support.
Gina is passionate about her work, but the growing demand for grief support post-Covid has brought her to the brink of exhaustion. "My cup feels empty a lot of the time," she says. On top of her regular work supporting grieving family members, she's hearing more and more from friends and neighbors who need support after a loved one dies. "I'm doing what I can," Gina says, "dropping brochures into mailboxes late at night, and taking people's calls in the evening, but I'm tired." Recently she's also been asked to step in and conduct memorials for hospital employees, and to then support managers who ask her for help knowing what to say and do.
Gina's story is one of far too many. A McKinsey report warned that nearly a quarter of nurses in the US are considering leaving their work on the front lines. The report speaks to how increasing demands placed on healthcare workers have created both a physical strain as well as a psychological strain for those losing patients, or in some tragic cases, coworkers and loved ones. I'm sad to say that nothing in the report surprised me. I speak every day, with caregivers whose cups are as empty as Gina's: physicians, PAs, nurses, social workers, bereavement managers, clinicians, and support workers who are looking for ways to keep up.
It was Gina's attempt to keep up, that led her to Help Texts (previously Grief Coach). She was searching for grief resources for a family in her neighborhood whose child had died. She knew she couldn't provide anywhere near enough support for the family given her own capacity limitations, so she decided to buy a Help Texts subscription for her grieving neighbor. She especially liked the idea that Help Texts would send texts to the grieving family, AND to the friends and neighbors who wanted to help. "Help Texts saved me time and worry," Gina shared, "and improved outcomes for the family too. It connects grieving people with their community, which is exactly what needs to happen after a death."
After seeing how useful Help Texts was for her neighbor, Gina started thinking about how great it could be at work, as well. A few years ago Gina lost a special patient - a teenager who touched her heart. She started using Help Texts to get grief support for herself as a professional caregiver, and when she received a text with a reminder about the anniversary of the patient's death it spurred her to reach out to his Mom. The teenager's Mom responded right away with photos and gratitude, and Gina saw again how powerful simple, personal text messages can be in providing support when someone dies.
"I wish we had this for all of our patients' families, she shared."
As a bereavement professional, Gina knows that supporting family members after a death means a reduction in illness, anxiety, sleep issues, substance misuse, and more. She also knows that this applies to professional caregivers too. Grieving is raw and painful to witness. Nurses and social workers and other care providers are called on to address suffering every day and to witness what may be the most catastrophic and stressful event in a person's life. It's no wonder, then, that our nation's care providers are experiencing compassion fatigue and burnout, and that reports like the one from McKinsey predict an enormous amount of attrition within the healthcare sector.
I asked Gina what could help.
"I wish I had resources to give people," she said. "It's stressful leaving families without adequate resources and feeling as though we have to be the sole support because then we worry about people falling through the cracks. I think that caregivers like me constantly feel that what we're doing isn't enough and that all the responsibility for providing support sits with us. Instead, we need to feel supported ourselves and confident that we have adequate grief support resources to share."
I'm glad Help Texts could play a role in alleviating stress for Gina, and am heartened each time I hear from a healthcare CEO who's interested in using Help Texts to support their employees. I hope that employers will take advantage of these resources quickly so that we can get policies and support programs in place to support the nurses and care providers McKinsey wrote about and the healthcare workers I spend time with every week.
I know everyone who reads this will share my enormous gratitude to Gina and healthcare providers across the US who have been on the front lines caring for so many of us year after year. I'm grateful to her for being brave enough to share her experience and hope that stories like Gina's can help healthcare providers recognize the urgent need to get policies and programs in place to support their employees when someone dies.